Word: desertion
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Desert Dive-Bombers...
Before the war, Rommel had traveled over the desert as a "tourist" and studied the terrain thoroughly. But he had no desert battle experience. So he established a training ground on the Kurische Nehrung, a sandy Baltic peninsula where UFA had filmed many a desert scene. His carefully picked soldiers lived in overheated barracks, learned to get along on dried food and vitamins, little water. Wind machines blew up artificial sandstorms. Rommel acclimated himself in a private hothouse...
Said he, also, without blushing: "Tobruk went after a single day of fighting, and this entailed withdrawal to Matrŭh, and 120 miles of desert was thus placed between the Eighth Army and its foe. Most authorities imagined that ten days or a fortnight would be gained by this. However, on June 26 [five days later], Rommel presented himself with his armored and motorized forces in front of this new position...
Just as Field Marshal Rommel used a sandspit in the Baltic to practice for desert warfare (see p. 22);, so the U.S. Army is using 108,000 bumpy acres of Texas to practice to beat Rommel. There Army tacticians are trying out new ways to fight tanks with new weapons: World War II's tank destroyers-self-propelled, forward-pointing guns of .75 caliber and up. Army men, giving the devil his due, admit that the guns are inspired by Germany's self-propelled 88s, used successfully by the Germans in Poland and ever since...
Among military men Rommel is now variously appraised as: 1) a bold and brilliant desert commander who makes mistakes like any other; 2) the best armored-force general of World War II; 3) one of the great military commanders of modern times. The outcome of the battle for Egypt and the Middle East may well settle Rommel's place in history...